Lovers of Justice is the Hebrew meaning of Ohavi Zedek, the Conservative congregation at 188 North Prospect Street in Burlington, Vermont. Founded in 1876, it is the oldest Jewish congregation in Vermont. The community once met in the original Old Ohavi Zedek Synagogue, a brick Gothic Revival structure erected in 1885 at the corner of Archibald and Hyde Streets, a building now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and occupied by Congregation Ahavath Gerim.
The congregation moved to this present location on North Prospect Street in 1952. Inside today you can encounter a remarkable rescued work known as the "Lost Mural," painted in 1910 by Ben Zion Black for another Burlington synagogue called Chai Adam, relocated here in 2015 and since restored as a unique surviving example of Eastern European synagogue art. The synagogue's history has been lived in public light — in 2019 the building was vandalized with inflammatory posters by Patriot Front, a recent reminder of contested memory.
Stand here and feel the layered dates and names around you: the 1876 founding, the 1885 brick building, the 1910 mural, and the move here in 1952. You'll find inside the 1910 'Lost Mural,' rescued and restored since 2015.